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Maine Lawmakers Push to Repeal Building Code

Maine Lawmakers Push to Repeal Building Code

Maine was one of the last states in the U.S. to adopt a statewide building code for homes when the state legislature voted in 2008 to implement the 2009 International Building Code (IBC), the International Residential Code (IRC), and the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), effective in mid-summer of 2010 in towns that already have a building code, and in mid-2012 for towns with no code already in effect (see “
New Energy Code Comes to Maine But Old Ways Die Hard Coastal Connection 6152010 See also
Maine 2009 IECC Effective for Locales with Adopted Building Codes,” Building Codes Assistance Project.) But if legislator
Lance Harvell Lance Harvell of Farmington has his way, Maine could be the first state in the nation to repeal its statewide building code altogether. Harvell wants to roll back the law creating the new code, and his bill, known as "An Act To Repeal the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code" (LD 43), does not reinstate any other code in its place. Text of the repeal bill is posted on the Maine legislature’s
web site The legislature’s Joint Committee on Labor, Commerce, Research and Economic Development scheduled hearings on the measure on April 7. The Kennebec Journal has this story on the hearings (“
Bill would repeal uniform statewide building code,” by Susan M. Cover). It’s unclear how much traction Harvell can gain for his proposal, even given Maine’s current anti-government mood: a random telephone poll of Maine voters by polling group Critical Insights, paid for by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, found that 90% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans favored keeping the current building code (“
New Poll Shows Maine Voters Oppose Environmental Rollbacks”). And some builders are joining energy-efficiency groups in opposition to the code rollback. According to the Portland Press-Herald, builders, contractors, and engineers got together at the State House in Augusta to demonstrate against the proposal (“
Builders protest attempts to undo uniform code). “Speakers provided copies of a letter to LePage signed by some of Maine’s leading building trade associations, representing over 1,500 member businesses,” the paper reported.